Camp kitchen and lead paint

I recently purchased an out door kitchen ensemble.These pieces are all
made out of wrought iron.I noticed a small sticker warning that lead based
paint had been used to paint the pieces.I bought this for a survival camp
kitchen.

With so many manufacturing jobs being offshored.I wonder just how safe
is equipement we are buying for SHTF?

That's interesting to me. As an avid outdoorsman, this is a concern. I'm not sure, but isn't there a law that says you can't put lead paint on something that's supposed to be used for food/food preparation? If not, there should be.


Chrono

Can you give us the names of the manufacturer and what the pieces were?

Greedy, unscrupulous corporations need to be outed as well as the rest of the schemers and liars.

Thank you.

Last set I bought were all stainless steel, 10 bucks, and were from Home Depot. I think I've got 5 sets of grilling utinsils now.

If you're going to use yours, I say heat them up and let the paint bake off, even scraping it off if you have to, down to raw metal. Then grab your bottle of cooking oil (virgin olive oil is good ), and repeatedly heat up the utinsils, wipe with (or dip in to, aka "quench") the oil, then let cool down, repeating the heat and wipe/dip steps between 5-10 times. That's called "seasoning". It's more often used in cast iron cookware but works well on most iron pieces.

From then on, clean them off with a salt and oil mixture (instead of soap and water). The salt won't dissolve in the oil and will remain abrasive so it will scrape things off, then heat them up and wipe or quench in oil once after cleaning. If you do it right, you'll only have to heat them up and wipe them off to clean, then just wipe with oil while still hot to keep them from rusting.

I go so far as to 'sand' down pre-seasoned cookware and season it myself since I don't know what they do to it. In this case, I sand it down to bare metal (with the dremel if I have to), wipe with oil, then put in to the oven at 450F for 15 minutes, remove it, wipe with oil, put in oven, etc. 5-10 times. Every time my wife makes something, she marvels over the things that don't stick to the cast iron skillet.

Good points Abe! As to the OP, if I were you I'd look online or at army surplus stores and get stuff from the WWII and Korean war era. I got a mess set from my grandfather, and its awesome! You know its built better, doesn't have all the crap, and u can get it cheap

reply to post by abecedarian


I wish I could give you 5 stars for that. I wished I had this information years ago.

reply to post by Chronogoblin


I'm not talking about pots and pans,it's a large camping grill.

Oops. Must've misinterpreted the posting.
So you must be talking about the top and bottom of the grill are painted with lead paint. Well, not much you can do about that other than sand it down and repaint with a different type of high-temp paint. You might check out what's available in the auto-parts stores for painting engine blocks and brake calipers and such.

I think Rustolium or Krylon makes a paint specifically for bbqs. It's lead free and can withstand high temps. That's if you feel like sanding/repainting it. Maybe call the company and complain, get your money back and buy a new one. You're always welcome to ask a sales rep to open a box or look in the store model box to see if it has warnings like that.

Originally posted by abecedarian
Oops. Must've misinterpreted the posting.
So you must be talking about the top and bottom of the grill are painted with lead paint. Well, not much you can do about that other than sand it down and repaint with a different type of high-temp paint. You might check out what's available in the auto-parts stores for painting engine blocks and brake calipers and such.

Don't do that. If you are talking about the external surfaces of the grill, don't do this. First, they won't interfere or contaminate your food (unless you lay your food on the outside of your grill). Second, lead-based paint is not dangerous until it is disturbed in a manner that can cause ingestion/inhalation. Grinding on a lead-based paint is the best way to make sure that happens.

Unless you have a respirator that you have been trained to fit properly, don't grind on the grill.

See if there are some high-temp sealers out there and just apply the sealer over the paint - then you won't have to worry about it anymore.